About

Your Funding Network was founded by Somaye Dehban (1981 – Tehran) and has developed and evolved throughout the years just as has Somaye’s career. As an experienced Project and Program Manager working in the development and humanitarian sector, Somaye shifted her career to fundraising in 2012 as a freelancer under Dehban Consultancy, and in 2016 she incorporated Lattice Consultancy B.V. (which runs Your Funding Network) to expand her team and the scope of her work.

To have a sustainable stream of funding, organizations need to not only have a collective approach to streamline their fundraising efforts but also anchor fundraising practices and mindset in their organizational culture. This was a change that needed to be brought about for Somaye’s clients and hence in 2018, she became certified in Change Management to better support her clients.

Combining her previous methodology in fundraising with change management, in 2020 Somaye launched her new and only service in Sustainable Fundraising which anchors innovative and entrepreneurial approaches to funding in organizational culture. Through diversification of funding sources and increase of self-funding, Somaye brings about financial stability for her clients to reach organizational sustainability.

That is an absolute requirement for any organization that aims at upscaling their impact to achieve Sustainable Development Goals. Upscaling the impact of Civil Society Organizations is the topic of Somaye’s PhD research at Rotterdam School of Management which she pursues on a part-time basis.

During her career, Somaye has worked for various universities and civil society organizations such as War Child, United Nations, Utrecht University, Simavi, National Democratic Institute, ZOA, The Hague University of Applied Sciences, Max Foundation, and Volunteer Activists to just name a few (for a complete list of clients please visit here).

Majority of her clients have local partners who always request extra support for capacity building for fundraising; moreover, based on a new trend for localizing funding sources, the need for building capacity for these partners has only increased. Nevertheless, many of the organizations do not have the capacity (financially or otherwise) to train their local colleagues. Therefore, as a social enterprise believing in Impact First, Your Funding Network subscribes to One for One Model.

This means that for every purchase of Your Funding Netowrk’s service by an organization, the same exact service is offered to a local partner of that organization in an in kind format. This practice is in line with the vision of Your Funding Network which is bringing about organizational sustainability for Civil Society Organizations & their Partners through financial stability.

An organizational sustainability which is a prerequisite for upscaling impact, is achieved through arranging certain conditions such as diversifying funding sources, increasing self-funding, creating institutional variety to name a few (for further explanation on this matter read this article in Resources). Institutional variety is created both at the internal and external level where new ways of working for development are allowed and diverse sets of partnerships are developed. Therefore, through One for One model, Your Funding Network builds capacity for your organization and your partners to reach organizational sustainability to upscale your impact and play your role in achieving Sustainable Development Goals.

Your Funding Network partnership with 1%Club and Voor je Buurt as crowdfunding/crowdsourcing platforms facilitate this effort. (To read more about them and other partners of Your Funding Network click here.)